Machine of Death A collection of stories about people who know how they will die.

Edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo & David Malki !

Preface.

This book, unlike most others, started its life as an offhand comment made by a bright green Tyrannosaurus rex. This particular dinosaur is the main character in Ryan North's "Dinosaur Comics," and just a few pages ago, you saw how excited he got about his story idea.

And he was far from alone! After Ryan published the comic in which T-Rex laid out his "machine of death" concept, readers immediately began to speculate about this machine and the world it might inhabit. So we posted an open call for submissions, inviting writers to take the idea and run with it however they liked. Now, a few years later, here are thirty of our favorite submitted stories, as well as four by us, that explore that premise. It turns out that T-Rex was right: it's a fantastic premise indeed.

Of course, some of the oldest stories in the world are about the dangers of knowing too much about the future, and a lot of these deal specifically with how people are going to die. (T-Rex would probably point out that he beat Shakespeare and the Greeks to the punch by at least 65 million years, but we're still waiting for the dated doc.u.mentary evidence to back that up.) But the funny thing is that these kinds of stories have a way of always being compelling. If we're honest, we'd all have to admit that we'd like to know at least some things about the future - no matter how often we say we don't want to. Yet none of us really have any say in the matter one way or another. We will never get to stand in front of an oracle or a blood-testing machine and have to choose between knowing and not knowing.

Perhaps that's why so many of these stories end badly for the characters who do want to know. We all want perfect knowledge of the future, but we can't have it, so we make up stories to convince ourselves that we shouldn't want it. Sour cosmic grapes. But don't think for a moment that this is a book full of stories about people meeting their ironic dooms. There is some of that, of course. But many more of the stories take the premise as an invitation to explore all kinds of different and surprising worlds. All told we received 675 submissions from writers on five continents, amateurs and professionals alike, ranging across adventure, horror, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, humor-every existing genre and a few new ones as well.

You'd think that after the first 500 stories or so, we'd have seen it all. But right up until the very end of the reading period, we were still discovering gems-new insights, new characters, new worlds, new twists to the premise. As editors, our biggest challenge soon became picking stories that not only were all excellent (that was the easy part), but that also represented the true diversity of ideas and approaches that we received.

So sit back and take a moment to look over the table of contents. Start at the beginning or just pick the t.i.tle that sounds most intriguing to you. Either way, there's no telling for sure exactly what you'll get. Prepare to have your tears jerked, your spine tingled, your funny bone tickled, your mind blown, your pulse quickened, or your heart warmed. Or better yet, simply prepare to be surprised. Because even when people do have perfect knowledge of the future, there's no telling exactly how things will turn out.

- Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo & David Malki !

Introduction.

The machine had been invented a few years ago: a machine that could tell, from just a sample of your blood, how you were going to die. It didn't give you the date and it didn't give you specifics. It just spat out a sliver of paper upon which were printed, in careful block letters, the words "DROWNED" or "CANCER" or "OLD AGE" or "CHOKED ON A HANDFUL OF POPCORN." It let people know how they were going to die.

The problem with the machine is that n.o.body really knew how it worked, which wouldn't actually have been that much of a problem if the machine worked as well as we wished it would. But the machine was frustratingly vague in its predictions: dark, and seemingly delighting in the ambiguities of language. "OLD AGE," it had already turned out, could mean either dying of natural causes, or being shot by a bedridden man in a botched home invasion. The machine captured that old-world sense of irony in death: you can know how it's going to happen, but you'll still be surprised when it does.

The realization that we could now know how we were going to die had changed the world: people became at once less fearful and more afraid. There's no reason not to go skydiving if you know your sliver of paper says "BURIED ALIVE." But the realization that these predictions seemed to revel in turnabout and surprise put a damper on things. It made the predictions more sinister: yes, skydiving should be safe if you were going to be buried alive, but what if you landed in a gravel pit? What if you were buried alive not in dirt but in something else? And would being caught in a collapsing building count as being buried alive? For every possibility the machine closed, it seemed to open several more, with varying degrees of plausibility.

By that time, of course, the machine had been reverse-engineered and duplicated, its internal workings being rather simple to construct. And yes, we found out that its predictions weren't as straightforward as they seemed upon initial discovery at about the same time as everyone else did. We tested it before announcing it to the world, but testing took time-too much, since we had to wait for people to die. After four years had gone by and three people died as the machine predicted, we shipped it out the door. There were now machines in every doctor's office and in booths at the mall. You could pay someone or you could probably get it done for free, but the result was the same no matter what machine you went to. They were, at least, consistent.

FLAMING MARSHMALLOW.

I'M SO FREAKING EXCITED I CAN HARDLY STAND IT.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow is my birthday, the the birthday. The birthday everybody waits and waits for and until you get there you just hate that all your old friends already got theirs and you're the only one without it yet, and sometimes you think birthday. The birthday everybody waits and waits for and until you get there you just hate that all your old friends already got theirs and you're the only one without it yet, and sometimes you think holy-freaking-eff, I'm never going to turn sixteen, holy-freaking-eff, I'm never going to turn sixteen, but then you do. but then you do.

At first I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep. I turn off the light, but after lying in the dark for half an hour, I turn it back on. I look at the calendar hanging on the wall above my bed. I reach up, lift it off its nail with one hand and snuggle back under the covers, taking the calendar with me and running a finger over all the red Xs marked over all the days leading up to this one. It's a little cold out, and the last thing in the universe I want to do is catch an effing cold the week of my birthday, so I snuggle down into the warmth of my flannel sheets even more. I know there're going to be parties this weekend, and I'm going to want to go.

This is what I've been waiting for all these months. All these years, I guess, though before my friends started getting theirs, it didn't seem like such a big deal. We were all No-Knows then.

Tomorrow, I'm finally going to feel like I belong.

Tomorrow, I'm going to find out how I die.

"Carolyn! Yo, grrl, wait up!"

At the sound of my name I turn around. It's Patrice. I can see her bounding up across the commons toward me. Her super-long hair is braided today, and as she runs it whips around at the sides of her head like two angry red snakes with ribbons tied to their tails.

"Hey, Patrice," I say, and clutch my books closer to my chest. I try to walk a little faster, thinking maybe she'll get the hint. She doesn't.

"Today's the Big Day, huh?" she says.

I nod.

She turns her head away, bites her lip. "Lucky," she says.

I shrug, speed up even more. It's not my problem she's one of the smartest kids in our cla.s.s and they moved her up a grade, like, four years ago. It's not my fault she's going to be a No-Know for another whole year.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Brad Binder. He is so effing cool-a burner, they say. That's That's hot hot, I think, and then I laugh to myself.

"What's so funny?" asks Patrice. We're at my locker, so I balance my books on my knee with one hand while I fumble my combo-lock with the other. I pretend I don't hear her, but she sees me flicking sly glances in Brad Binder's direction.

"Not him him," she says, rolling her eyes. "You can't be serious."

"Shhh!" I try to shut her up. I wish I had some kind of freaking super power or something. I wish I could just concentrate really hard and make her go away.

Brad Binder pulls his letter jacket out of his locker, which is so close to mine, three other girls have asked to trade lockers with me. He shrugs his perfect-so effing perfect!-shoulders into his jacket and takes out just a notebook with a pencil shoved in its rings. No computer, no books, no nothing. G.o.d, that's so effing cool. Just like a burner.

As Brad walks away, Patrice fixes me with one of those stares of hers. "He's not that great, you know. I heard he kisses like a dead lizard."

I guess guess you'd you'd know know, I almost say, but I stop myself. I don't want to stoop to her level, be so childish. I'm sixteen today and after school my dad's taking me to the mall to get that slip of paper, and then I'll know where I really belong. So I shrug again instead, let it slide off me, like egg off Teflon. "He's a burner," I say. "They're pretty cool."

Patrice snorts. "You know what his slip said? 'Flaming Marshmallow'. That doesn't sound like a real burner cause-of-death to me, no matter what he says. He should probably be hanging out with the chokers, instead. You wouldn't think he was so tough then."

I've had enough of Patrice. "You wouldn't understand," I tell her, and walk away toward Geometry cla.s.s. Maybe Cindy Marshall will be nice to me today, it being so close to me getting my c-of-d slip. Maybe I'll end up being a crasher, like her.

If only!

I'm almost late getting to cla.s.s. Mrs. Tharple looks at me extra-sour, but I don't give a flying eff. I slide into my seat right as the bell rings, and catch Cindy Marshall's eye. I smile.

"Don't even look at me, you No-Know," she says to me, low under her breath as Mrs. Tharple starts handing out our pop-quiz. The other two girls behind her snicker. I can feel their eyes darting against my skin, sharp like the teeth of weasels.

"It's my birthday," I say.

She turns in her seat and looks at me full-on. I try to understand the look in her eyes, but I can't. I feel like it's something really obvious, like she's trying to tell me something so, so, so obvious, I should already know it.

I feel really stupid.

Mrs. Tharple walks between us, places our blank quizzes face-up on the desks in front of us, glides on by to the next row and toward the front of the room again.

I look down at my Geometry quiz, try to concentrate, try to ignore the heat in my cheeks and the tips of my ears and on the back of my neck.

"Hey, you," hisses Cindy Marshall.

I look up.

"So did you get your slip yet?"

I shake my head. "After school," I tell her.

She narrows her eyes. I can sense the other girls, crashers both, also watching me, but I play it cool. I hope.

She nods. "If you get your c-of-d, and it's crashing-anything: plane, car, bike, hot-freakin'-air balloon, whatever-you come talk to me again. Tomorrow."

I have to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling. I try to look like this isn't the best offer I've gotten all morning. I try to look tough. I want to be crasher material, I really do.

"Tomorrow," I say, and she nods again, once.

Not one of those girls acknowledges my existence the entire rest of the cla.s.s, but I don't care. Everything will be different tomorrow.

Tomorrow, my life can begin.

Lunch isn't what I'd hoped for.

I've spent all this time counting down to my birthday, thinking, this is the day everything changes this is the day everything changes, but it isn't. I don't feel like a No-Know anymore, even though technically, I still don't actually know. I'm under eighteen, so I have to have my parent or legal guardian with me to get my slip. If I could've, I would have ditched lunch today, gone to the mall, gotten the whole thing over with. Instead, I have to wait for my dad to get off work. It's so unfair.

So, even if I get my slip tonight, n.o.body but me is going to know my cause-of-death until tomorrow. Well, my parents will know, and my little brother, I guess. And I'm sure I could call Patrice and tell her, but why? After tomorrow, I'll have new friends to hang out with.

But for today, I'm still stuck in No-Know-ville.

I grab my tray and slide onto the bench at the end of the table. Patrice waves me down further toward her end, but I pretend I don't see her. I line up my eight extra packets of mustard and start tearing the corners off one by one, slowly squeezing out the sharp yellow and gooping it all over the top of my synthesized proteins and pressed vegetable shapes.

Covertly, I scan the room, wondering, fantasizing about where I might be allowed to sit tomorrow. Who's going to welcome me with open arms?It all depends on my c-of-d.

A ruckus is going on over in the corner. Of course it's the burner kids, cracking each other up, starting a food fight. The burners, the drowners, the crashers, the live-wires, and the fallers-all the violent accidentals-they sit in mingled clumps along the two tables in the corner. That's the coolest corner, and I'm pretty sure I'll get to sit there tomorrow, or at least close. The next couple tables out wouldn't be so bad; you've got the med-heads and the sharpies and the bullets-mostly malpractice and murder, right?-though some kids sneak in there who should probably be over with the suicides. I can see those from here, all dressed in black and with pale faces. They look like a bunch of crows, pecking at their food.

Just please don't let me be at one of the last two tables: sickness and old age. Ugh. They look boring even eating lunch. That would be my c-of-d if I was forced to sit at that table: Bored to Death.

"Happy birthday, Carolyn."

I'm so startled I squeeze a mustard packet too hard and it squirts all down the front of my dress. I start to dab it with a napkin, but I'm just turning bitter yellow clumps into bitter yellow smears.

"I'm, I'm so sorry, Carolyn...eff. I-I-"

I look up into Jamie's face. We used to be friends, a long, long time ago. He lives just down the street, and we used to ride bikes together every single day. I can still taste the sun and summer dust on my tongue, just looking at him. We stopped hanging out when his parents joined the Anti-MoD League. Sometimes, on the way home from school, I see his mom standing out in front of the mall with her placard and her sandwich board. "Lives are for Living" say her signs some days. Others, "People Against Machines of Death" or even, "Don't Ask, Don't Know-You Have a Choice!"

Jamie's almost eighteen, and he's still a No-Know. I'd just die if that were me. I'd just die.

"It's okay, Jamie," I tell him. "Don't worry about it."

He has a couple of napkins in his hands, and he's dipping them in his water and holding them out to me. He started to dab one on my breast, but figured out in time it probably wouldn't be such a good idea.

I try to stifle a sudden memory of me and him kissing behind the convenience store dumpster. I was probably about twelve or thirteen, and he was fourteen or so; right before his parents joined the League. I remember he tasted like strawberries.

I hope Jamie doesn't see my ears and neck turn red. He's one of the few people who knows me too well for me to hide it.

"Your mom picking you up after school?" he asks.

I keep dabbing, shake my head. "My dad."

He nods. He's watching the motions of my hands as I rub the damp napkins on my lap, on the fabric stretched across my ribs, but he's not really seeing me.

"I'm sorry," he says again, and I don't think he's talking about mustard.

By the time Dad picks me up, I'm mentally exhausted.

He kisses the top of my head when I get into the car. "Hey kid! Happy special day."

"Thanks."

I throw my stuff in the back seat and fasten my lapbelt.

Dad's just sitting there with a loppy-sided smile on his face. "You want to go get an ice cream first, or something?" he says. "You want pizza? A movie?"

How can he be so freaking clueless? I want to tell him what a moron he's being, but when I look at him something feels like it slips sideways in my stomach. For the first time, I'm looking at the forty-something man with the gla.s.ses and the stubbled cheeks and the ugly sweater, and I don't see my dad.

I mean yes, of course, I see my dad; the middle-aged med-head c-of-d (accidental overdose) with the over-expensive house and the boring job and the two kids and last-year's-last-year's car, bought cheap with high mileage from a rental fleet...

But I also see a guy. I see a guy who loves me so much, he can't even put it into words. It never occurred to me to think this might be a big deal for him, the day I get my slip. He looks tired, I think. More tired than usual.

I reach out and put my hand on his where it's resting on the steering wheel.

"Sure, Dad," I say. "Whatever you want."

He covers my hand with his other one, so it's kind of like a hand-sandwich, my fingers and knuckles pressed between two layers of his. His eyes look a little bright for a second, but I decide it's only my imagination as he places my hand back in my own lap and starts the car and pulls out from the curb.

I watch the school get smaller and smaller in the side mirror as we drive away.

I finish off the last of my ice-cream cone, and so does Dad. We wipe our sticky fingers on the wet-wipes and throw those away, and I get up from our food-court table and gather all my bags as I stand. Dad's bought me a new pair of shoes, two new books, and a hat he says I look great in, but which I know I'll never, ever wear again in a million billion. All I'm missing is the partridge in a pear tree.

"So...what next, Birthday Girl?Need some new gloves?Music? You used to love the music store."

He's walking over to the mall directory, studying the list of stores. I walk up to him, set down my bags of books and shoes, and touch his arm. "Dad," I say, "It's time."